Movie about recreating the movie about recreating Raiders Of The Lost Ark in the works

In 1982, a pair of Mississippi kids named Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala set out to create their own shot-for-shot remake of Raiders Of The Lost Ark, a project that spanned seven years, two home video formats, several near-brushes with serious injury and damage to their parents’ houses, and the normal, ravaging effects of puberty. But it all paid off with the completion of Raiders Of The Lost Ark: The Adaptation, which became an Eli Roth-championed festival hit that spawned a glowing Vanity Fair profile, a book about their journey, and now, possibly two upcoming films about their film of another film. Deadline reports that Napoleon Dynamite producer Jeremy Coon has optioned the rights to Alan Eisenstock’s Raiders! The Story Of The Greatest Fan Film Ever Made with the hope to make another movie about teens who are unflappably devoted to their insular geek world—or rather, two movies, as the plan is to make a documentary that would then be followed by a narrative feature.

It’s not the first time Stompolos and Zala’s story has been earmarked for a movie, with Scott Rudin setting up a possible Raiders feature in 2004 with graphic novelist Daniel Clowes writing the screenplay— a project that Clowes said was killed by Paramount the day Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull was greenlit. That's obviously also a potential stumbling block for Coon, as is getting the blessing of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. Although, the latter is something Strompolos and Zala have already received from Spielberg, at least, when he wrote a letter to them calling their film an “inspiration” and didn’t have all extant copies burned.

So, should Spielberg still be feeling magnanimous and Paramount not step in to prevent Raiders from going forward, possibly by making Harrison Ford's wishes for another Indiana Jones movie come true, we could soon be seeing a narrative movie based on a documentary based on a book about a fan film based on Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Then, someday, maybe someone will make a fan recreation of the narrative movie based on the documentary based on the book about a fan film based on Raiders Of The Lost Ark. Then someone can write another book about the fan recreation of the narrative movie based on the documentary based on a book about a fan film based on Raiders Of The Lost Ark. And then someone else can make a documentary based on the book about the fan recreation of the narrative movie based on the documentary based on a book about a fan film based on Raiders Of The Lost Ark. And then we could probably just stop there, because that’s enough.

In the meantime, you can watch the full, original fan film on YouTube: